It’s hardly surprising that foreign journalists abandoned the Gaza Strip Alan Johnston’s kidnapping. One unintended consequence: dubious Palestinian stringers fill the info vacuum. The Jerusalem Post writes:
Despite widely publicizing Johnston’s plight, not all the details on his kidnapping and, more crucially, on the group holding him – the Durmish clan – its demands and methods have been reported by the mainstream news organizations. In some cases, this has been to protect Johnston from any possible reprisal and, but also out of fear of future retribution when reporters return to Gaza.
McGregor-Wood denied there was any attempt to hide information….
In the absence of the foreign reporters, the news still getting out of Gaza is coming almost exclusively from Palestinian stringers. Some of the major organizations that in the past preferred to rely as little as possible on stringers have signed them on and equipped them with additional recording equipment. But using only stringer-produced material is problematic.
“The people who use the stringers have to sift their material very carefully,” says Jay Bushinsky, a veteran member of the Foreign Press Association. “You have to be naive to believe that in a place like Gaza you can be a fair-minded reporter. They have a mission and they don’t give anything detrimental to their leadership.”
For more on the reliability of Palestinian stringers, see here and here.
